


Their time would come.

by Sarie_Fairy



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Episode: s08e15 DeadAlive, Episode: s08e16 Three Words, Episode: s08e20 Essence, Episode: s08e21 Existence, F/M, Love, RST, Season 8 post Deadalive, Sex, UST, Up to present
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:20:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21885133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarie_Fairy/pseuds/Sarie_Fairy
Summary: How did it come to pass, that these two souls seemed so destined to twist and turn together? Was written in the stars? What choices would they make with their free will?Mulder is back from the dead and Scully has never been more elated. Her every wish and prayer come true.She had him back, but she very soon realised that you don't spend months inside a coffin, under six feet of earth, and walk away the same man.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 41
Kudos: 119
Collections: X-Files Secret Santa Fanfic Exchange (2019)





	Their time would come.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bumblebee1220](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bumblebee1220/gifts).



> This fanfic is my gift Ann Marie. I really hope you like it. 
> 
> Thank you to Annie ([Admiralty](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/admiralty/pseuds/admiralty)) and Tamie ([iloveyourscratchybeard](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/iloveyourscratchybeard)) for being such amazing beta's. 
> 
> Annie, thank you for fielding all of my canon questions, and offering suggestions to make this fic a little more understandable. And Tamie, thank you for staying up way into the morning to read over the (almost) finished fic. Thank you both so much. 
> 
> (The final story, as it appears, including the ending, was not beta'd. I ran out of time - any errors are mine.)
> 
> And a huge thank you Nicole ([OnlyTheInevitable](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/OnlyTheInevitable)) for all of her amazing work to put these exchanges together. Thank you 🥰
> 
> More notes about the prompt, at the end.

* * *

**_  
"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."_**  
– Emily Brontë

####  **Prologue**

Her grounding was in the physical. The quantifiable, the tangible. A scientist’s brain. It was how she made sense of the world. How she moved through it. 

His base was emotional, the psychological. Instinctual. More difficult to measure, but trust could be instant. Conclusions drawn quickly. No need to wait for findings and results. 

In a fable about a tortoise and a hare, the slow and steady rationale of the scientist would win the race, above the quick, instinctive profiler. But maybe they were never meant to be in competition. Perhaps the moral of the story should have been that they made the perfect pair. That if they combined their skills, they could go anywhere, do anything, as long as they did it together. 

####  **i)** **On starlight...**

_“The light is billions of years old by the time we see it. From the beginning of time right past us into the future. Nothing is ancient in the universe […] maybe they are souls […] Traveling through time as starlight, looking for homes.”_  
– Fox Mulder

It happens once in an age; two souls created from the same star. Hurtling towards and prevailing inside of destiny. The force between two such creatures so powerful it is said to be blinding. To be the most captivating, all-consuming, mighty light; these beings reuniting. These Dual Souls colliding. So it is written, their lessons for certain were deeper; more to untangle though more to gain.

Trust must be pure, twin starlight so colossal, inside of Earthly beings, it can be difficult to contain. To capture and control. The tests of their connection more challenging from all the other mere soul mates.

Like all souls, they return to Earth, over and again. With those of the same star cluster; together always. To join, to live, to love, to be. Connections to deepen, truths to seek. All to be found in oneness. 

The fight for this acquaintance, this acquisition of unity, is a most beautiful, a most extraordinary journey, and may take many lives. 

For them, their time had come. 

_This_ life was time...

####  **ii)** **A twist and a turn** ****

_“There is no right or wrong. Life’s just a path. You follow your heart, and it’ll take you where you’re supposed to go.”_  
-Melissa Scully

“It’s your life, Dana. _Yours,”_ Melissa told her younger sister. Placing a hand on her shoulder as she moved around the kitchen table and sat down opposite. “Don’t live it for anyone else,” she continued, in answer to the tortured look on Dana’s face.

Dana was sitting at the family’s kitchen table in her parent's house, holding a letter, after just admitting to her big sister that she was thinking about accepting the place she had been offered; to train as an FBI Agent.

She knew her little sister so well. Saw the familiar struggle between desire and need. Saw her wish to steer a new course in battle with her usual pattern of doing what their father expected. 

“You could do it all for Dad; be a doctor, and he could, I don’t know," she smirked, "drop dead in a few years. Then where would you be?”

“Missy,” Dana scolded, with an upturn of her lips, used to her big sister’s blunt, but entirely honest way of putting things.

“I’m serious,” she said, with that twinkle in her eye only Dana recognised. “You could make all of your decisions to please him … or Mom … or _Daniel_ …” she added, with a raise of her brow. “But ultimately Dana, you need to stop,” she clasped her sister’s hands, “listen to your heart, allow yourself to start making your _own_ decisions…”

Dana was all but through her training in medicine when she confessed to her sister that she felt something missing. _Something._ It was only a day later that she had been approached, recruited to join the FBI, and the idea had begun to take hold. _A potential life in the FBI, as a law enforcing Federal Agent._ The thought thrilled her. So entirely different to anything she had ever imagined for herself. She didn’t know what was missing, but she knew she wouldn’t find it in a life of medicine. She wanted to really push herself, she wanted a life of unknown, of adventure, outside of sterile rooms and the insides of warm bodies. 

So, she chose. Defied a ship's Captain’s ideal of her. Changed her fate…

...

Somewhere, another choice. A failed marriage and hiding himself in his work. Damage from his obsession with a stolen sister, an angel past. Who visited him in regressions and dreams. Diana not of his soul, not up for the journey. 

And so…

Wheels turned; a course set for the twin starlight to converge. To return. Their first meeting and their reunion. She, now a small redhead, descended from the Celts, all stubborn and warm, and he; tall and strong, from the ancient Ashkenazi, thoughtful and wise. 

####  **iii)** **Fate is a pull, not a destination**

_“I recognised you instantly. All of our lives flashed through my mind in a split second.  
I felt a pull so strongly towards you that I almost couldn't stop it.” _ _  
__-_ J. Sterling

A new assignment. A basement office. A handshake.

Their souls remembered one another. Recognised themselves. A sense of something from the first. A tug. Not something either of them could put their finger on. Could describe. Just a feeling. Small at first. A twinge of recognition. An easy slip into familiarity. Personal space, smaller. The need for proximity, greater. The want to touch – overwhelming. A pull they tried to ignore. Time and again. Reasoned it away.

If they gave in to the magnetism, they both thought, and fucked it up ... if this thing went the way their previous romantic office relationships had, they would lose. Lose something, they couldn’t tangibly explain, they now couldn’t live without. So they held each other, an arm’s length away, marking time, a holding pattern of close but not too much. 

Free will is written in the stars. They had free will. As did all. They had free will to work against their soul attraction. To drift and not act. To ignore and not listen to their inner selves or the whispers from the heavens. They could also fall victim to others’ free will; challenges from interruptions of impure motivations. More to fight against. These two, so much more it seemed. They would hang on and let go. A bittersweet dance of the broken way they had fallen to Earth. 

Their connection, though, was immutable. That _was_ written. Their celestial existence, a promise. Always. Always. Always.

As with freewill, so too comes heartache. Expectations stolen. It was not written, was not destined, that one sister would be taken and tortured nor was it that the other, a sister too, would be shot and killed. They too, from the same wave of consciousness, the same star cluster. Joined now in the cosmos. To watch over. To guide. To push, if the will was strong enough. Guard, until their own time of return. Two such souls craved in _their_ joining. Witnessed over and again, across many lifetimes, something keeping them from their oneness. Always something. Fear now it would be the same way in this life. They felt it from the ether, a shared consciousness now, to succour. 

_Was it too late…_

####  **iv)** **Life, death and the Space Between**

_"To die, to sleep - to sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come..."_  
-William Shakespeare

Cold, hard, light.

And pain. 

From the endless time on unforgiving surfaces. Pain from the cold. Pain from the ache of tiredness. Tiredness from constant light. Pain from the drills and screws and metal.

And loud. Machinery and screams. Scream and maybe others. 

_SCULLAY!_ Over and again. Couldn’t be sure whose voice. _His?_

Many moments spent in a dream-scape. Or hell-scape. Moments. Or indeterminable passages of time. 

There were days when the memory of who belonged to that name would float freely and hover. Seeping into his heart. Keeping hope there. A longing, a need to reunite. Some moments, anger for that need. He wanted to see her, but he wanted to slip away too.

And days or nights when she wasn’t real. Just an added feature of his persecution. An injection of something, to infect him with doubt, take away a memory, add a false one. Who _was_ she … He had a recollection that he knew her so completely. 

But, every plane of existence was messed with. Screwed up and tormented.

Awareness, someplace, that she was missing. Or was it he who was? He didn’t know. Maybe he had disappeared. He felt like he was disappearing. From himself.

He felt erased.

He slowed and almost stopped.

####  **v)** **Keep him safe**

_"The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run."_  
\- Herman Melville

The sprite of his once sister laid down with him in the dark box. Months in the dark box. Kept his consciousness under. Draped him in dreams (and nightmares). Covered over him like a heavy blanket. Halted the terror until such time was upon him. A comforting whisper to him that she would come again, one day. Calmed him to stay. She would come again one day, back to him, in many years; another babe for them, if he would just hold on. 

First, the first life, for them, a new life in their combination, being created. Soon to be on Earth. _Her_ soul’s angel sister. She would come. Soon. Very soon. Would belong to them…

_...hold on._

They do. These Dual Souls; hold on. Cling. Each of their soul’s sisters embracing them, keeping them.

More to be done from the heavens though. To fight the immoral powers. More to be done, and can be, to push and pull at the fringes of fate.

A seafarer on Earth, the patriarchal Celt below, now a power to intervene. Ahab at the helm of his ship. A celestial Neptune. To churn the darkest waters. Create a fearsome sea. To steer the path of a boat to a bloated body, to set in motion a resurrection. 

To put them back on their path.

####  **vi)** **With and without**

_"Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things."_  
-Arthur Schopenhauer

She hung on with all that she was. Knowing that part of him was inside her. With her. Willed herself not to lose him. Her grounding in the tangible was how she managed to drag herself through it.

Months of sadness. The more this child grew inside her, though half was of his making, the further away he felt. 

It wasn’t like when Missy died. She felt her gone. In an instant, her big sister felt gone from the Earth. She felt the finality of it. _This_ feeling though, of Mulder being dead, was the same she felt when he was just missing. The two times he was missing. She hadn’t felt him go. Didn’t sense him gone. Perhaps, she thought, they were just not close enough for her to know his departing. That idea made her sad and confused and she didn’t trust herself. So, she detached and tried to get on … with life, she supposed. 

She kept his apartment. She couldn’t say why. Would sleep there, different nights, since the loss and death of him. In his sheets, still thick with his scent. Hold onto a shirt, press her lips to the part of the fabric that used to lay over his heart. And cry.

####  **vii)** **Angels held her**

_"Angels are intelligent reflections of light, that original light which has no beginning. They can illuminate. They do not need tongues or ears, for they can communicate without speech, in thought."_  
\- John of Damascus

To stand. To drag herself from crumpled heaps on the floor. To move. To breathe. To continue. To live. Angels collected her. Lifted her. Held and engulfed her. 

When she lay in his bed, fell into sleep, surrounded by his Mulderness; _she_ was there; a spirit of her sister gone. Beside her, above her, within her. When she tangled in his sheets, clutched at his shirt and essence, struggled to breathe; she was there, telling her, without words, that he would return. That she must hang on. That she must be strong. He would come back to her.

She whispered to her too, in the space between dreams, that she would come back. Thought to her, that it was nearly her time again. Her time to come home to her. 

A new life soon to be...

####  **viii)** **I have to see him!**

_"Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit, and look on death itself!"_ _  
_-William Shakespeare

The phone rang. Erupted her from sleep at 2 am. That had not happened to her in a long while. So reminiscent of the very person the call was about.

It turned out to be the most ridiculous, the craziest, and ironically the most Mulder-kind of phone call. But, also the very best phone call she had ever received.

Dead and buried Mulder. Returned. Dug out of his grave and currently in the ICU ward in the US Naval Hospital in Annapolis.

She had never had so many emotions coursing through her at once; hope, apprehension, grief, devastation, elation, fear. She could hardly but recall her frantic journey to the hospital, nearly knocked someone over as she parked, not sure she locked the car door as she burst down the hall and into the ward.

She had to touch him and hold and feel him and just be by him no matter the outcome. She would cling to the tiniest piece of hope. 

Now seeking its opposite, she only became aware of the abundance of grief she had been holding. What she had been through. Not truly allowing herself to step through any of the stages of mourning. Hovering somewhere at the acknowledgement of denial.

It can’t be true.

Mulder dug up.

From the earth and the casket.

From the earth, she herself sprinkled over him as she ached more than she ever had.

Alive. But still dead. But maybe alive...

And then… 

… his eyes opened.

####  **ix)** **Over to them**

_“Do not be afraid; our fate cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.”_  
\- Dante Alighieri

Perched in the ether, they waited. Their conspiring brought this moment upon them, in a hospital room, beeping machines all there to convince her he had a chance.

A chance. 

They had a chance. 

Free will’s turn now.

####  **x)** **Cogito ergo sum.**

_“I once begged the gods to let me see you — if only for a moment. To see you and know you’d made it. Just once; that was all I ever hoped for.”_ _  
_\- Sarah J. Maas

He could hear the air. The rush of it swooshing in his ears. Heard it in his head. Heard the tiniest of particles colliding. Filling all the space. Working to even out the balance of protons and electrons in the room. Perpetual motion. Felt the molecules dance on his skin. Caress the hairs on his arms. 

He could see the bright red of the oxygenated blood, coursing through the arteries within the thin flesh of his eyelids. 

His bones were held in their place by muscle and ligaments. Strong and stringy and soft. Not hard and wiry as before. He felt the blood of them. The hot blood of them warming him. He had been cold for so long, he forgot about warmth completely.

He thought. Had an awareness of being alive. He thought now, that he knew he _was_ alive. He _was_.

 _I think, therefore I am._ A stuck piece of Philosophy 101, ran across his temporal lobe. 

He wasn’t sure about that before. Wasn’t sure that just because he could think that it meant that he _was…_

But he felt alive ... _now_.

He thought, maybe, with the new blood he knew was charging around in him, that he could move … a finger. Yes, a finger…

He felt, as soon as he twitched, something grab at his hand.

He felt he knew what it was but had to open his eyes to see. 

And he saw it. Her. The woman. His soul’s eyes. The one who was missing was missing from him. And he from her.

He saw in her eyes. She was all expectation. Waiting for him. 

He let her know he knew of her. Pulled a trick to let her know that his essence was still inside of him.

He saw, yes, but he did not feel.

####  **xi)** **Don’t call me that.**

_“That’s the worst way to miss somebody. When they’re right beside you and you miss them anyway.”_  
\- Pittacus Lore

She drove him home. They were mostly silent in the car. Mulder only speaking to point out any noticeable differences in his surroundings. Scully felt the irony creep up and clutch at her. He, detecting a large branch missing from an overhanging tree in his street, but failing to recognise that she had almost morphed into an entirely different being. Had had all of her branches fucking lopped off. She’d been split in two by desperation and grief and then rearranged into a person whose love for Mulder was palpable. Was worn on her sleeve and around her neck. The words ‘I love you’ playing on the tip over her tongue, waiting for any slight tinge of a green light to go. 

This new Scully, far-flung from the one he left behind. The Scully who hung onto her feelings so tightly she wouldn’t finish a conversation he started the night before he was taken. A conversation he tried, in vain, to have with her, about their future and what she meant to him. 

She was ready now, God, she wanted to finish that conversation. To finish talking and begin the life with him, he so desperately asked of her before.

They walked in the door, Scully carrying his bag, leading the way. 

“Must feel good to be home.” She told him and he gave a slight nod before looking around. 

Scully hoped getting him out of the hospital, back to a place so familiar, would bring him back to her.

His apartment always had the same smell. Of him. Months and months after the last time he was there, it would hit her like a comforting blanket, before turning over and slipping off, leaving her cold and melancholy. The knowledge that nobody owned that smell anymore, almost suffocated her. 

The same moody lighting filtered into his dark little den. His same pokey kitchen, desk laden with important Mulder things. The leather couch they had watched so many bad movies on. 

That couch could tell the story of them. They had begun at their own ends, leaning out, on the cushiony arms. In their own corners. Wanting to touch, but testing. Circling each other before trust was established. They inched closer over time. Leaned in. Worked together, their friendship growing. Moments of grief, where they would embrace. Movie nights. Take-out and beer. Movie nights became regular, and their newer ease with one another become foot rubs under the Aztec blanket. Eventually, Scully became aware, he would push her heel into his groin as he massaged. She would feel him harden. She would never stop him though. She liked it. She would just keep her focus on the screen. Soon, she would press down, of her own accord. Shift her feet purposefully and watch him close his eyes. 

They’d kissed once, on that very same couch. The length of it, for them, no longer necessary, the two of them only taking up the smallest surface area, as their bodies began draping over one another. 

He didn’t sit on the couch. 

He perched on the desk and made another observation. A dead fish. A fucking dead fish. No mention of where his love for her went. The love that should have been infinitely bigger than a stupid molly. 

_Where had it gone, Mulder?_

She on one side of the room. Stuck. He remained on the other. 

Mulder was almost always an opened invitation. That’s how he’d felt to her before she lost him. A flirt through and through. A soft place to fall. A non-judgemental being of the highest order. His emotions laid bare. His want for her, she felt, was something palpable, touchable, she felt foolish now that she used to think of it as sacrosanct - there, just waiting for her. Waiting for; _I’m ready_. 

So, _this_ was not how things ever played out in her mind, in her fantasies of him being back. When she still had hope of finding him alive (and sometimes after he was dead); they would embrace. Cry. Kiss. Tell each other how they realised now, that they loved one another. Could not live another moment if not as one.

She felt like he could barely look at her now…

She tried to explain, to tell him he couldn’t possibly know what she had been through. She told him she prayed. Hoped he would understand that she made a wish. She wished for him to come back to her and he did. Thought maybe it would move him somehow, that her one wish, in the entire world, was to have him.

But, no…

He deflected and referred to her unborn child. _Their_ unborn child. As if that was somehow all she cared about now.

From a very distant place, he told her that he thought he knew how much it meant to her.

Meant to _her._

 _Fuck, Mulder._

They had talked about it. At length, when he agreed to father her child. They would do it together. He wanted it too…

Meant to _her_ … A pierce through her steadily breaking heart.

She wanted to tell him that she loved him. That she’d done it, she was pregnant with their child. To tell him that she wanted all of it now, that she was dying here without him, in spite of the life growing inside of her.

“Mulder….” Was all that she could manage. The rest of it hung in the air though. The conversation was there between them. She knew he knew it. She didn’t need to say the words. She waited for him to tell her, it was time...

But, no...

He didn’t answer and she didn’t bother to try and fight back the tears as they ran down her cheeks.

 _No mistaking now, Mulder. Tears._

He was firmly rooted to the spot in front of his fish tank. He would have, before, moved swiftly over, wrapped her in his embrace and heat. Kissed her forehead even. Stroked her hair.

But, no…

He politely apologised for being distant and eloquently explained that he didn’t know where he fit, or how to process everything. He turned away. Left her standing awkwardly in the only space that had brought her any comfort in the months he was gone.

_With me, Mulder. You fit with me. You always have…_

She bit her lip and tried to find something else to talk about … but she couldn’t.

“The baby, Mulder… ”

“I’m sorry, I just,” he cut her off, looked up at her, “… I need some time … Dana, please.”

A sound came out first. If you didn’t know it, you’d think she had been kicked in the gut. Then the words, the volume and tone shocking even her…

“Don’t call me Dana! Don’t …” she saw him recoil, further, if that was possible.

He hadn’t uttered her name since rising from the dead. Hadn’t really needed to call for _Scully_ or greet her in any way, yet. And now, to be regarded that way. A further chasm grew between them...

She saw his reaction and softened, “ … please Mulder,” she said, gently shaking her head, finding it difficult to say the words, “don’t call me that.”

She sucked her lips between her teeth and tried hard to bite back the well of emotions spilling out from her. She turned from him and sucked in some air. 

She had to get out of there. She turned back to him, where he was, still at the desk. Across the room. Still the same distance in his eyes.

“I’m sorry. Will you be okay?” Her calm delivery of the words unmatched to the lump in her chest and her wet porcelain skin beneath her crying eyes.

Just an affirmative nod.

“Ok. I just have to go … um … get to the office for a little bit. Call me if you need anything?”

She didn’t wait for a response and she was gone. 

Out of his door and as fast as her pregnant body would allow. Spilled out, and a loud sob escaped at the click of his door shut behind her. Down his hall, another sob as she passed the point where he caught up to her once, stopping her and told her how much she meant to him, where, but for an intervening bee, they would have first kissed. She kept moving and knew he wasn’t chasing her today. She steeled herself and made her way to the lift alone.

####  **xii)** **Alive and alone**

_“Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life's cruellest irony.”_  
― Douglas Coupland

His door clicked. Leaving him alone. 

He turned from his spot on the edge of his desk. Pressed the button on his answering machine. 

“Compañero!” Langley’s voice crackled into the room. Mulder turned and sat on his couch. “Except that it was Scully telling us, we would never have believed it man!” 

“Welcome to the land of the living, my friend,” Frohike’s voice joined in.

“Yes, it is most unbelievable Mulder. Welcome back.” Byers added, before, “I would love to get my hands on your medical files.”

“I can't wait to get my hands on you, Mulder,” Frohike interjected.

“We can’t wait to see you buddy,” came the voice of Langley once more, “call us when you’re feeling up to it. We’re having a star trek marathon tomorrow night. We’re going to pick apart all the scientific impossibilities. It’ll be fun. Just come over if you’re up to it. See ya man.”

And the line was dead.

A sexy voice slithered into the room next. Mulder jumped up and shut the machine off. 

He looked around. Absently touched the quickly healing scars on his cheeks. 

He wandered through his apartment. Went to the fridge and looked inside. A smile played at the corners of his mouth at the fresh food there. Scully, he thought. _Scully_ in his thoughts. His jumbled mind couldn’t grab on to why he used her first name. Perhaps he needed to hold a distance between them. He had some small fire in his belly, a small flame of anger maybe, and he wasn’t sure why.

He moved to the bedroom. Bed made, though it looked like someone had laid on top of the covers, a small human-sized indent, barely visible. His detective brain still firing. He knew she had laid there. When? How many times?

He laid down, spread himself over her shape. Sunk into the pillow and gripped it with his hand. He pulled his hand back from underneath, a striped business shirt of his was there. He took a breath, smelled. Put it to his nose and closed his eyes. 

“Scully.” He breathed. Breathed her in and out. 

… _Scully_ …

####  **xiii)** **Alone**

_“Love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding.”_  
\- Diane Arbus

Scully drove. Home. She wasn’t sure that’s where she would end up. She contemplated going to her Mom’s, but in the end she wanted to be closer to Mulder, be somewhere he could find her. In the seemingly unlikely event that he would want to.

She felt herself begin to harden. With every mile she put between them. All the softness and aching love that came when you missed somebody who had shed their Earthly skin, was slipping. Something calcifying in its wake.

One thing about herself she wasn’t sure she liked or disliked, was that her pragmatic sensibility was always there. Once in her door, she wanted nothing more than to throw herself onto her bed and sob herself to sleep. Instead, she made a sensible balanced meal. She had to take care of her body for her baby. Every time she thought of the baby now, her and Mulder’s baby, it took her back to their agreement. 

They would do it together. Have this baby together. Mulder wanted them to be a couple from the jump. From the moment of that conversation. But Scully wanted to wait. Wait until closer to the birth, until she could finish up with work. And then see if that’s what she wanted at all. When the IVF didn't work, Mulder had tried to talk to her about what it meant for them. For their possible life together. He still wanted to be with her. Wanted a future. She would tell him she wasn’t yet ready to discuss it. The night before he was taken, he told her that he still wanted her. And if she wanted a family, they could adopt. He desperately wanted her to consider him. Consider them. 

Did he even want a baby anymore? She was pretty certain he did not want her.

After her dinner, she managed to get her cumbersome frame into the bath. It had to be cooler than the nearly scalding temperature she normally liked to sink herself into, to wash away the day's grime and emotion. But, the baby, she had to keep her temperature steady. She did sob then though. The bath was a good place. A confessional rectory, a private prism to drink wine, indulge in fantasies and indulge is the word Scully would use to describe this too, _indulge_ in crying. 

She went to bed, and didn’t dream.

...

She was woken early to a knock at the door. She got up and found her robe, tying it as she made her way through her apartment. It took so much longer to do anything at her size. She was only a few steps from the door when she heard the familiar key in her lock and yesterdays ‘misunderstanding’ with Mulder immediately began to melt away, replaced by a gentle admonishment as to why she would have ever doubted that he would eventually follow her. 

She opened the door once she heard the lock click.

“Oh. Hi Mom.”

“Hi darling. Did you sleep in?”

“No. Um, what time is it?”

“It’s just after 8 …” The confused look on Scully’s face prompter her mother to continue. “I was taking you crib shopping today…”

“Oh, Mom. I …” Her face crumbled. It wasn’t Mulder and she couldn’t hide her sadness. Her mother wrapped her, as best she could, in an embrace, as the first tears broke over her lashes.

“Is it Fox? Is he okay?” she asked, panic lacing her voice.

“He’s fine Mom.” She reassured quickly into her mother’s shoulder. “He’s actually never been healthier.” She added, leaning back, assuring the woman, whose affection for Mulder was almost as great as her own.

Scully moved herself over to the sofa and sunk down in it, wrapping her arms around the life inside of her.

“Let me make some tea. We can go shopping another day if you like.”

Once the two women were settled on the sofa in a comfortable silence. Half of Scully’s tea swallowed along with some of her wretched sadness.

“I don’t know what it is to lose someone when you have time to say goodbye, to say all the things… ” Scully began, breaking the words into the air, not looking at her mother. Not needing to. Knowing she would better get it out as if she didn't see the ache and kindness in her mother’s eyes. “After Missy died, I had just about a million things I wish I’d said. I’d tell her how much I loved her. How much I needed her. How, even though she was the kooky pretty one, and I was the brainy nerd, she was so much smarter than me.” She was half smiling at the thought of her big sister. At her memory of her as the tears flowed freely. “I loved her so much Mom, and I spent a lot of time rolling my eyes at her, but I was really in awe of her. I wish I’d told her that.” 

She looked across at her mother. She was crying now too. She grabbed her daughter’s hand. “It was the same with Dad. I just wish I’d said all the things.”

“Oh, Dana…” Her mother began, squeezing her daughter’s hand, “they knew.” She implored.

“That’s a nice thought Mom. I’m not so sure.”

There was a silence between them.

“When Mulder went missing I … I promised myself that when I found him ... I’d tell him… I’d just … tell him ...” she stopped.

“That you’re in love with him?” her mother finished. 

She looked across at her mother once more, her chin quivered and her face dissolved as she nodded and fell. Crying. Her head landing in her mother's lap. She curled her feet up onto the sofa as her mom began to gently stroke her hair.

“He won’t even look at me, Mom,” she sobbed, as her mother moved her hand down and patted her back. “How can I tell him anything, if he doesn’t want to even be in the same room as me?”

“Shhh,” her mother stroked and cooed at her daughter until the sobbing had changed to a gentle tears.

“Dana, he loves you. Fox loves…”

She cut her mother off. “Mom, don’t, please.” 

“Dana, I know you’re upset, but I need to say something.”

Scully slowly sat up. Turned on the sofa as best she could. Faced her mother. 

“When you were returned to us after your kidnapping ... _abduction_ , you seemed ... changed. Missy and I were so worried about you. I even talked to one of her psychologist friends who told me you were likely suffering from ... well, I can't remember what it was, but it was the same as what those boys coming back from Vietnam were suffering from. Some kind of shock. Missy’s friend just told us to be our normal selves around you, listen to you if you needed space, not to pressure you. And give you time.”

Scully wiped the tears from her cheeks with a tissue she just removed from the box on her coffee table. 

“Really? I didn't know that.” She was genuinely surprised. 

“I’m certain Fox would have felt it too.” She took her daughter's hand. “And it was ok Dana. You’d been through an ordeal, of which none of us could ever have imagined.”

Realisation spread over her. She felt it almost suffocate her, as her sadness turned to regret. 

“Oh Mom, you’re right.” She bit her lip, shaking her head slightly. “He needs space. Not me expecting something from him. Trying to force him to love and comfort me. Shit." She started to rise, rubbing her hands over her belly. Searching the room. "I'm going to go into work," she said decidedly. "I need something to put my back up against. Something else to think about." She turned to her mother. "If you're okay to go shopping another day?”

“Of course’” her mother said, rising too. “Although ... at least let me take you to breakfast before work, ok?”

Scully looked at her mother, understood the drive she took to get to her, managed a smile.

“Okay. I’m sorry. Yes. That would be lovely.”

####  **xiv)** **Kismet**

_“The moment of surrender is not when life is over, it’s when it begins.”_  
-Marianne Williamson

They were of the stars, not written in them. That’s where the pull came from, some Earthly beings call it fate, kismet, destiny. A pull. And it can be ignored or shunned. What comes with two souls joining is truth and honesty and a giving in. A surrender.

####  **xv)** **Why didn’t you tell me you were dying?**

_"Secrets are like scars. The cut may no longer be there, but the scar's white line tells a story. Unless you share it, it's like you're hiding a part of yourself the whole world can already see. They may not know the how or the why, but they see it just the same."  
_ \- Robin M. King _  
_

There was a knock on his door. Scully was standing there when he opened it. She looked resolved. Not emotional like she had the day before.

“Hi, Scully.” He said, drawing out her name, letting a the tiniest of smirks touch his lips. 

She looked up at him through her lashes.

“Hi Mulder.” She said, returning his small smile. “Skinner’s on his way over.”

He nodded, opened the door wide for her. She eyed him on her way in, under his arm.

Once he was seated on the lounge, she moved close, placed her hand gently in his hair and tipped his head. Ran her fingers across the marks on his cheeks; even smaller than yesterday.

He closed his eyes to her touch. Took a slow breath. Wanted to enjoy it. Enjoy her. To reach out to her, but the moment the room disappeared, a flash of light, and metal. A whirring, and the sensation of hooks under her fingertips, hot in his flesh, tugging. He grabbed her hand and pulled her off him. 

His eyes snapped opened and he saw her expression. He loosened his grip and tried his best to soften.

“I’m fine Scully.” He forced a smile. “Perfect health, remember?”

He let go of her hand. They looked at one another. Still close. Not touching. Hovering somewhere between their familiar movie night couch liaisons, and the space of terror and fear and grief, that had slowly been consuming them. Keeping them apart.

A knock at the door broke the air between them. Scully turned, left to answer it.

In the few seconds to himself, Mulder ran his own fingers over his cheeks, took in a sharp, deep breath and arranged himself and his face as casually as he could.

Skinner came in to tell Mulder what he and Scully had just learned, that Kersh wanted him out of the field, behind a desk. He felt a fire inside. A seed of discontent. Just what he needed to get himself out of his apartment and out of his head.

He felt like getting back to work.

…

Take-out containers littered the table. 

Mulder had spent a frustrating day at home again, couldn’t get the paperwork needed to get back into the office until tomorrow. So, he was pleased for the distraction when Scully came over with dinner. 

They had a million things they could have spoken about, but instead they talked of the current affairs Mulder had missed while he was gone (abducted, tortured, dead?). 

Scully began to make a move to clear the coffee table. Mulder touched her hand. Caressed her skin. Signalled that he would do it.

When he came back from the kitchen he sat closer to her on the couch. Less of the length of it needed than earlier that day, than just then while eating dinner.

She turned to him slightly. Took a breath. Didn't look at him and spoke. Calm.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were dying?”

After a beat of silence she looked up to search for his response.

He was looking at his hands, his bottom lip in his teeth. She lowered and tilted her head to try and catch his gaze, but failed. She continued to question the side of his face.

“Surely you had a reason?” She pressed, gently.

He let out a big sigh.

“I’m sorry.” He shook his head like he was genuinely ashamed. His face turned towards her slightly. He didn't look though. “I was ... protecting you.”

“Me?” Scully was shocked and actually angry. “Protecting me?" her brows raised. "How is not telling me of a _medical_ condition, protecting me, Mulder?” She gave him a few seconds to reply, to look at her even. “I’m a doctor. I could have helped, been along for the ride with you.” Still, nothing from him so she ploughed on. “All the time you _knew_ you were dying and…”

“Scully … I …," he looked, "I’m not convinced I was.”

“Was what?”

“Dying. The doctor couldn’t tell me what I had. I was making my own inroads to find a cure...”

“But Mulder! …,” she’s was trying to remain calm. “ _You_ saved me, Mulder. From dying. This chip in my neck,” she grabbed at the nape of her neck... “ _You_ found it, and _you_ saved me. _I_ could have helped.” She bit her lip but it did nothing to bite back the frustration that had been bubbling up in her since she found out of his gross omission. "Goddamn it, trying to spare me from some emotional turmoil when you could have dropped dead one day and I'd have had no warning…”

Tears began to spill in the same manner as her words; hot and fast and full of hurt. She wiped them away with the back of her hand quickly, before they had a chance to betray her further, with wet trails down her cheeks

“Scully. _Please._ Stop. Don’t be angry at me. I _know_ you.” Mulder's voice was level. He had twisted to face her too. He remained to himself though, defying his impulse to touch her, hold her. "If I had told you about it. That it was the result of … of something alien, and that perhaps a cure for me, like yours, was out there somewhere, out there in someone’s grimy hands... I _know_ you. You would have put yourself, _you,_ not your emotions. You would have put yourself in such danger. I couldn’t risk you fighting that fight for me and getting yourself killed… I couldn’t risk … losing you.”

The words hung in the air; an altogether different conversation spoken between their eyes...

“Tell me I’m wrong, Scully. Tell me you wouldn’t have done anything. I mean _anything_ to find a cure.”

“Mulder I …”

“I made the right decision for me. I was handling it.”

“You were handling it, Mulder?” She had turned her body further into him, their knees touching on the couch. “The headstone?” 

He sighed and his head fell back as he closed his eyes and he took a moment, a few breaths to himself.

He straightened up and looked at her. Allowed his gaze to wander her face before finding the endless azure of her eyes.

“I was just trying to put them off. I didn’t want them to think I might have been onto something. Might have been close to finding a way to help myself. I never meant for you ... or anyone to see that. It was just supposed to be a decoy.”

He looked at her. Continued his plea for understanding. She slowly reached out, took his hands in hers and looked at their connection there. Silent for a long while. Knowing now, that the root of Mulder’s decision making was for her safety, stirred something within her. The smallest slither of hope began to crack at the resolve that had started to harden her vulnerability. 

“Okay. I think I understand.” She said, now looking up to meet his gaze. “Don’t ever do that again though, Mulder. You have to promise me…? You have to tell me these things, okay?”

He looked at her for a long while and nodded in submission.

“How are you sleeping?” She said, allowing the discussion to end there.

“Hmm.” He chuckled. “Terrible. But when I do actually sleep, I think I’m having flashbacks ... about what was done to me.”

“Nightmares?”

“I guess.” he acquiesced. “It’s ok. I never sleep anyway.”

“The couple of times I’ve slept with you, you have…” She bit her lip, “I mean...”

“It’s okay, I know what you meant.” He looked across at her, somewhat shyly. “Well, you must be my tonic.”

“Do you want me to stay? Sleep, over.” The emphasis was well on truly on the word sleep.

He regarded her and she couldn’t read his expression but felt the need to clarify. 

“I’ll take the couch.”

He laughed then.

“I can’t allow a pregnant woman to sleep on my couch, Scully. Besides,” he looked at her coyly. A small light behind his eyes. “I have a feeling you might have made yourself comfortable in my bed before, while I was gone…”

Shame rose up and flushed her face and she dropped her head. 

“Um..,” she felt that all too familiar sadness rise up in her chest again. A misty display dancing at her lashes. “I …

“I’m sorry,” he said, moving closer to her, “I didn’t mean to tease.”

“I missed you … Mulder. I just … I wanted to …” She couldn't finish.

So he did. “Feel close?”

She looked up at him then; no longer making fun. His hand reached to touch her face.

“I know.” He said as his thumb caressed her cheek, smudging the moisture away. “I wore your chain,” he touched the gold cross with his other hand, “during your abduction. When you were gone. Just to feel close.”

She put her hand over his on her cheek. Turned her head and pressed her lips to his palm, closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. Lived there for a small time. Some of yesterday's pain fading.

“I’m sorry I called you Dana.”

She let out a laugh. Opened her eyes. Smiled at him. 

“I’m sorry. It’s absurd that you should be apologising for calling me by my own name…”

“Scully.” He cupped her other cheek. Held her face steady. “I am sorry.”

She let herself be captured by him. They breathed together. He dropped his hands and they found hers.

“I’m sorry, too. I was being selfish. You have so much to process.” 

There was a silence between them. Scully was aware that he hadn’t taken her up on her offer to stay, and the last thing she wanted to do, after this current progress, was to push him.

“I should go. Let you get some rest.”

She went to get up, which was proving more and more difficult these days. 

He grabbed her hand as she made it to a stand and began to move.

“Stay.”

####  **xvi) I’m here, I’m here, I’m here**

_“What comfort there is in the skin of someone you love!”_   
\- Erich Maria Remarque

She stayed. Put on an old shirt of his, snug around her middle. She offered again to take the couch, but they both ended up in the bedroom. As much as he had asked her to stay, she didn't feel the invitation extended beyond sleep.

They both lay down, on their sides, under the same sheet. She facing his back. He hadn't turned the lamp off yet and she could tell by his breathing that he was still awake.

“Are you tired?” She eventually asked him.

“I don't know,” he said, turning over, rolling in to face her. “I feel like my brain is. I went for a long run today. So I should be. You?”

“More tired than I would have thought humanly possible,” she smiled and placed a hand to her belly.

Mulder noticed the gesture.

“Ah,” he nodded in understanding. “Um,” he began again, “are you ok if the light's on to sleep? I just…” he didn’t finish. Didn't need to.

“Of course,” she answered, and at that moment it only really sunk into her, where he had actually been. For months. Her Mulder, her love, had been in a coffin. A fucking coffin, under the ground. _Jesus._ And who knows what other atrocities before that. Her eyes welled.

“Of course it’s ok.” She told him gently. 

She smiled a small smile accompanied by a slight nod and relaxing sigh. 

“Close your eyes,” she suggested.

He did as she asked.

She watched him for a while. A long while. 

His breath, his lips, his beautiful face.

Thought that perhaps she could see those scars on his cheeks healing in front of her eyes.

_Would it be ok if I stroked your hair? Just, touched you? I need to touch you._

She said none of that. Thought it and wanted to ask. Opened her mouth a few times and even began to reach over to him, but stopped herself. 

His breathing slowed. She watched him as he breathed his way from wake to sleep. And then, she watched until sleep found her too.

…

“SCULLAY! ... _SCULLAY_!” 

She was ripped from her sleep. A panic rising to match the tone of his voice. Completely awake in a second. Dragged herself to sitting, back against the headboard, next to Mulder, who had moved himself there almost within the same moment. He was panting and sweating. And Scully thought, crying, though it was hard to tell where the moisture had come from.

“Scully.” He breathed, panted.

“I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,” she said, one arm going to his shoulder as she positioned herself in front of him. The other to his carotid artery.

He stared at her. Eyes wide. Fear palpable. It looked like he was falling away from her, inside of himself, desperately grasping a cliff at the edge of his consciousness.

“Stay with me Mulder. I’m here. You’re safe.” 

He began to cry. A sob torn from him as he came back into the room, fully focused on her. He fell forward onto her, into her arms and clutched. 

They stayed like that, both crying, until they eventually slipped down the bed together, ending there. Laying, facing, he wrapped in her and around her. She pulled him close and ran her fingers through his hair. Kissed his forehead. Held him.

And they slept. 

####  **xvii)** **Creation**

_“For truly we are all angels temporarily hiding as humans.”_ _  
__-_ Brian Weiss

Once, they fell into each other. In sorrow and comfort. Mixed together. They were not aware. Ignorant to they divine amalgamation. 

A combination of two tiny pieces of two beings. Combine and divide, and divide and divide. A true miracle. A creation. A spark of existence. Growing and waiting for a soul.

To return in their right time...

That time is nigh.

####  **xviii)** **Ours**

_"If you love something, set it free; if it comes back it's yours, if it doesn't, it never was."_  
\- Richard Bach

Mulder had begun to get back into work. It both worried and gave Scully peace. He had something to sink his teeth into and the light was appearing back in his eyes. Each night they slept in the same bed. Mostly at his place. Scully not wanting to change too many things about his grip on the familiar. The nightmares began to lessen. 

Things were beginning to fall into a pattern and she felt an inevitability between the two of them. An anticipation. A feeling that once the baby was born, somehow, something huge would shift. She continued to give him space. Let him come to her, didn’t push. 

He was taking her home. She had just been released from hospital after a pregnancy scare. It felt familiar. She relaxed into his attention and found comfort in his fussing of her. She saw love, she felt it. 

He dropped her home and left to collect some things from his place. A plan now for him to stay. Stay with her. 

She felt a sense of calm washed over her, as he moved about her kitchen, collecting plates and cutlery for their dinner. She felt his courage. After everything he had been through, this man, this beautiful being, that she knew for absolute certain she was desperately in love with, still had so much faith to search for answers. To seek.

He had joked again, as had many, about the who father of her child might be. Another implication of her regular pizza man being the one, albeit in jest, prompted her to make sure he knew what she already assumed he did.

“Mulder, the baby’s father … you know...” she nodded toward him.

“Is it mine?” 

“Yes.” She saw him exhale, but not altogether relax. “Yes! Oh my God. Yes. Whose would it be?”

“I don’t know, I just assumed you would maybe have gone with an anonymous donor…”

She shook her head. 

He responded to her look of confusion. “So, you did another round with my ... my _stores_ , after … when I was missing?”

He looked down. Away from her. He recognised now that the small fire of animosity he held inside, had come from that. That she would, or could, create this baby of theirs with him, but without him. 

“Mulder…?” Her face fell and softened. She leaned in, took his hand and whispered gently to him, “is that what you’ve been thinking? This whole time?”

He looked up to meet her eyes.

“Well, how else?” He looked down at her belly.

“The birds and the bees and the monkey babies Mulder.” She smiled at him. “That night.” 

He looked a little lost.

“I came home, here. And you were waiting for me on the sofa after our last round of IVF. It had failed and you hugged me, and...”

“Really?”

“Yes. The timing is right.”

“I don’t… How? You don’t have ova, Scully.”

“It's like you said Mulder, you told me not to give up on a miracle.” She moved close to him. Reached up to his face. “You hugged me, and then…”

“And then ... I kissed you.” He finished for her.

She nodded as he moved closer to her, relief spreading across his face. Over his entire body. He cupped her jaw and repeated the same - kissed her. Her eyes closed and she melted into him as she slid her lips across his. They opened for one another. Opened. Leaned closer. Her hand to the back of his head, her other to his knee. He pressed his tongue to her parted lips and she welcomed him. Welcomed him in and home. They felt like one and the same. His tongue lapped at her's and she sighed. Licked at his tongue. Their lips brushed over one another, their heads moved, mouths adjusted as their kiss became more passionate and heavy and stirred something deep within them. He held her face in both hands as her fingers ran through his hair. They kissed, for long a time. Finding a way back. When their lips separated, they joined again, pressed their foreheads together.

“Our baby Scully?”

“Yes Mulder, ours.” 

####  **xix)** **Falling into each other**

_“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”_  
-Anais Nin

They fell into a pattern. Such ease in cohabitation. They did domestic things. Birth class things and bought a crib. The words hadn’t yet passed. In part, they were holding their breaths. Waiting to see this child. To witness this miracle as real, before any declarations. 

They knew how to wait.

Scully had just gotten out of the shower. She wandered from the bathroom into her bedroom in her robe with just a pair of cotton briefs on underneath, to afford her access to her skin. 

She began to sing ‘Joy to the world’ as she opened a tub of body balm and scooped up some cream onto her fingertips. Her back to the door, she didn’t hear Mulder poke his head in. She finished the first verse and paused for more cream.

“Chorus,” Mulder said from his now comfortable position in the doorway.

Scully spun around, managing to close the robe around her breasts as she did so.

“Oh, you scared me, I didn’t know you were there.”

He stepped into the room.

“Can I do that?” He asked, grinning slightly, looking from the tub of cream to her protruding belly.

“Okay.” She said. Totally taken off guard.

“Go lie down.” He instructed.

She did. She lay back, then scooched over to make way for Mulder once she realised he was going to sit beside her on the bed.

He’d moved the cream to her bedside table and collected a generous amount on his hand. He brought it to his nose.

“Vanilla?”

“Vanilla/coconut.” She confirmed.

He began to smooth his hands over her skin. He was gentle but firm enough that he didn’t tickle her. As his strokes continued she let out a moan and relaxed her hands to her sides. Her robe fell from her breasts. She opened her eyes and saw him looking. Didn’t cover herself though.

He shifted his gaze to her eyes. They held there. Softened. He moved his hand and collected a little more cream. He looked to her breasts again before glancing at her with a question on his brow. She nodded. So slightly. 

Mulder rubbed his hands together to spread the cream evenly over his palms and fingertips. He slowly reached down and tenderly caressed the side of each breast, even long strokes. Scully watched his face. He worked his way, two hands in unison, circling the volume of her breasts. Then his hands brushed over her nipples. Back and forth. They puckered and hardened under his touch.

“Are they sensitive?”

“No,” she told him. Eyes heavy. “Not yet anyway.”

He pinched a little, remembered that she once liked that. Her eyes began to drift closed.

She let out an _mmm_ when his mouth landed over one her nipples, his lips wrapped around it. Sucking and licking, nipping, while his other hand rolled over her other peak. She brought a hand to the back of his head, welcomed his attention by running her fingers through his hair.

He drew more sounds of pleasure from her before he released her breast. She opened her eyes at the loss. He nodded at her. An affirmation. Looked at her with such reverence. Love. Swiped the hair from her face and cupped her cheek. He leant down and pressed his lips to hers. She kissed him, lips parted and tongues welcomed. She held his cheek and pulled back. Smiled as slow tears began to streak over her temple and become lost to her hair. He ran the tip of his nose down hers, swiping back and forth and the tip of hers. He lifted his head and found her eyes.

“Mulder.” Just one word. It said everything she needed to say. 

He motioned for her to move over. She shuffled, turned on her side. He captured one side of her robe and she turned back to him. Looked at him and smiled, pulled her arm free. She half sat up to remove the garment completely. Mulder quickly relinquished his clothing and then asked and received permission to help her out of her underwear.

He slid in behind her and scooped her into a spoon. Cradled her backside on his thighs. His undeniable arousal, hard against her arse. He pushed an arm under her neck and she lifted her head to fit him there, his other arm over her. Both hands returned to her breasts and he continued with his attention. Stroking, kneading, pinching. His lips found the back of her neck and began to kiss her there. Gently suck. She moved her head slightly to afford him more of her skin. She tilted her pelvis, her hips now angled so her arse pushed further into his hardness. He kissed along her shoulder. 

“Scully,” he breathed in her ear, as he rocked himself, gaining friction between his groin and the soft skin of her backside. “Is this ok? Can we do this?”

“God Mulder, if you stop now, I might actually kill you.” She said. Quite seriously.

He chuckled and playfully bit down on her shoulder.

“Pregnant women being horny is no misnomer I’ve discovered.”

“Scully, you said _horny_ ,” he teased, as he moved a hand from her breast and brushed it down the length of her torso, landing at her hip.

“I did,” she replied, “because I _am_.” She finished telling him and reached her hand behind her backside and took hold of him.

He let out an _mmm_ sound and moved his hand down between her legs, caressed over the soft curls there. She lifted her knee. Invited him. Hooked her ankle over the top of his bent legs, spread herself. 

She held him, began to slowly squeeze as she moved his length through her hand. He parted her with his fingers, rubbed her slickness over her folds, brushed her clitoris. She let out an involuntary noise and sucked her bottom lip between her teeth. She moved positions, a little, lent forward off his chest a fraction and let him go from behind her, only the reach around her belly and try and take him in her hand between he legs.

She let out a frustrated sigh.

“Move,” she instructed. “On your back. This isn’t working."

He laughed and moved himself up, kneeled on the comforter and helped her to her knees, before positioning himself on his back, in the middle of the bed. 

She easily maneuvered a leg over his pelvis and straddled his hips. She allowed her centre to rock over him, dragging her arousal over his. Coating him. He groaned as he reached between his legs and lined himself up to her, running his tip between her lips, and up over her clit. She let her head fall back.

“God, that feels so good.” She said, panting slightly.

”You feel amazing.”

She raised her head and looked at him. Stayed like that, they both did, for a moment, her breathing into the space, him still swiping and rubbing, until he stilled at her entrance. He placed his other hand on her hip to guide her down. He pulled, and she dropped, sunk down onto him. All at once. Sat herself on the tops of his thighs and had to ask him if she was too heavy. He chuckled playfully and told her “no”, said she felt unbelievable.

Then she rocked. Swayed her hips back and forth, lifting off him slighting on the backswing. She created a rhythm and he responded, pushing up with his hips to make their union deeper with every beat.

“Oh, Scully,” he exhaled. 

She blinked slowing at him. Smiled. Their eyes locked. A most true, pure connection. They had succumbed to one another. Opened and let go.

”I missed you.” She said. Almost mouthed the words. “So much.”

”I know.” He reached up to her cheek, gently swiped at a new tear with his thumb. “I’m here Scully ... I’m here.”

She smiled. Desire and relief a most welcome, most unfamiliar, combination.

”And even though I was the one missing, missing from my whole life, I only missed you.”

She held his hand off her cheek and kissed his palm. Then moved it down onto her chest, over her heart. Held her own hand over his and began to sway her hips again. Speed up. Their eyes locked on. Neither of them daring to blink lest they miss a moment of this perfect moment. She steadied herself with her other hand to his chest. She felt his rapid heartbeat beneath her palm, matched pace with it. In time. 

He found her centre with his other hand, followed tempo with her rhythm; rubbing and circling. Watched her closely and learned how to play her. The pressure, the pattern.

She began to clench at him, squeeze him in her walls. Felt him throb and grow with every thrust of her hips. He removed his hand from her chest, taking her's with him. Clutched it in his own. Their eyes still connected. Both caught in one another’s gaze.

They held on, watching, and pulsing, and thrusting and swinging as their union climbed and began to peak and crescendo. Together. Together as they moved from the precipice of ecstasy, and fell into rapture as one. 

####  **xx)** **Always together**

_“Souls come back together, different, but always together. Again, and again, to learn.”_   
_– Fox Mulder_

It was time. The crossing over time. Nearing time for rebirth. A final embrace of all of the celestial beings in the kindred star cluster of the firmament. Ahab and his once daughter, a final embrace. An understanding passing between them, without words, without ears. 

Their journey was to be difficult for this first stage of their new Earthly body. They would be loved. So loved. But apart. A sense that the reunion with their old terrestrial sister would be but fleeting. For a spell. But this spirit was strong. Was chosen for their vitality and close connection back to the spirits. 

It was time. The crossing over time.

####  **xxi) Their time would come.**

_"And even though I know how very far apart we are,  
It helps to think we might be wishin' on the same bright star." _ _  
__-_ James Ingram & Linda Ronstadt

There was a light. A guiding light. 

He ran to her. To them. Fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around them. Looked at his child, then his Love. God, his Love. He knew it.

It wasn’t the unfurling of these things all at once. It wasn’t that it happened at that moment. All the moment held for him was simply an acknowledgement of a truth. A truth as old as the stars. A surrender. 

There were fear and chaos and, with help, he got his brand new family to the chopper. Not the place for declarations. His place for holding on. Gripping at them. His arms around her. Her’s around their child. He closed his eyes. That instant was perfect. Was stillness. Was peace. Unlike he had ever known. It was fleeting and it was forever. Something aligned and shifted. He thought, maybe, he could almost hear the voice of his sister, in the silence of the noise. Like the edges of a dream. Fragments of words, of ideas, slipping by like sand through fingers. _Hold them. Hold them, Fox._

 _And then their time would come_ … she said… _hold on..._

Soon the sounds of the chopper would again invade his senses. Soon his two loves would be ushered out of his arms to be looked over and cared for. Soon … soon, very soon he would find out he was again in mortal peril. And soon he would have to tell her, as he promised, that his life was again under threat.

Soon…

But first…

He’d waited at the hospital. Dropped her off at home in a cab. Her mother was there waiting. He’d received a message, something he had to attend to. When he returned to her apartment, three friends were there too. He found his way, alone, to her room. Found his way to her. To his Love and his son. William. 

She looked more beautiful than he had ever seen her. More content. 

He held his son and told her. And he was right when he told her that he thought what they feared were the possibilities. From the very first. The moment of meeting. The subconscious, unconscious knowing that they were meant for each other. Knowing that possibility from the first time they met, jolted them. Scared them.

They were ready now. To reveal the truth they both knew.

They kissed. William content between them. His kiss said everything he had to tell her, but he needed to say the words too. 

He pulled back, William making gentle noises in his arms.

“The truth Scully is that I am in love with you.” 

She told him too.

Soon, he would tell her. Tell her everything, and together they would think up a plan. And she would insist—could not bury him again. Through tears and panic and adamant fervour; there was no other way.

And so he went. Did as she asked. As she had begged.

Their physical bodies apart once more, though she kept his heart, and he kept hers. And a promise, that until they joined once again, they would, at the same time in the dark, look to the sky and find the starlight of Kochab, the largest of the stars in Ursa Minor, and look on it. Together.

####  **xxii)** **Not the end**

_“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”_  
-Winston Churchill

The two, of the twin starlight, converge and then asunder. Much to receive, to understand, to grow along their journey to recognition. Alone and together, a push/pull until time was understood, was ready for a new soul's return to the terrestrial plane. His once corporeal sister, yet to come. Then they would belong. Hope for them then, to truly avow. To surrender.

In time, a matriarch infused to the ether, there too, to watch and guide, to steer the first child back home, to release _his_ once mortal sister to the second.

**Epilogue**

_"What if there was only one choice and all the other ones were wrong? And there were signs along the way to pay attention to."_  
\- Dana Scully

She stood at the window of their house, unremarkable in its materiality, remarkable though by the four souls now held within its walls. She watched intently out the window. The most serene look upon her face. He came up from behind, waited for her to realise he was there. When she saw him, she gestured with her chin out the window for him to see. Her grin widening. She faced her view once again and from behind her, he snaked his arms familiarly around, just under her bust, as their height difference dictated. Nuzzled his face into her, kissed her neck, before looking out to discover what was making his Love so content.

Just beyond the front porch, in the yard, stood their son. So very much older. Near a man. Darkness outside, but for the gentle porch light. Black, save for the billions of stars. In his arms he held his sister, not much older than two. He was pointing up to the night sky. Naming constellations and she was doing her best to copy his sounds. Every time she did, he chuckled and kissed her cheek, occasionally bounced her on his hip.

“Once,” he began, “your mom … _Mom_ ,” he corrected, “told me that those stars we see are souls.” He pointed up and she pointed too. “She said that Daddy thought the starlight might be souls looking for a home.” He kissed her cheek again and she cuddled into him.

Inside the house, his hands found hers and squeezed. She in return. A bigger smile broke across her face making way for her gentle tears now silently flowing, to reach the corners of her mouth. He looked down at her, kissed away the moisture on her cheek, only to leave behind some of his own, his eyes glistening too.

Outside in the starlight, he hugged his sister close, her little arms around his neck. “I like that idea,” he said now, almost to himself, “that we look for where we want to be.” He stopped for a moment, regarded the vast night sky. Both of them quiet, faces indigo against the miraculous firmament, only the edges of features in amber highlight from the gentle glow of the house. Almost hearing the whispers of the ether. “It means, I guess, somehow I chose ... _Mom and Dad_." He smiled. A true contented smile as he returned to look once more upon the cherubbed cheeked youngster in his arms. His is voice lifted, “and you!” he finished as he playfully brushed her nose with a finger.

She giggled, and said, “brrrr”.

“Me too, let’s get back inside.” He turned and began to walk up the porch stairs. As he neared to top, he saw them. Embracing in the window, looking back at them.

“Come on," he said in mock admonishment, “can’t I have a conversation with my little sister about starlight, without you two dissolving into tears?” He smirked.

Mulder's grinned widened and he tightened his grip around her as she lent back into him, turned her head and kissed his lips. They held there. A knowing passing between them. A consciousness that they had arrived somewhere. Not in time or space, but in understanding. Every unknown they had ever chased. Every darkness, every monster, every truth they had sought, somehow slipped away. Though there would always be vast unknowns, things to question and seek answers to, this question, the one they had been unknowingly chasing since that very first handshake, all of those years ago, _had_ been answered.

She drew back and grinned too. Cocked her head. “I love you,” she sighed.

“I love you too, Scully.”

…

Surrender.

They were each other's answer. A simple truth in the end, there all along. They could go anywhere, do anything, as one. 

####  **~ THE END ~**

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> This was my prompt for this fic - Mulder and Scully talk about her pregnancy and how Mulder feels after waking up and seeing her very pregnant. They are together but Mulder is having a hard time dealing with the baby coming and his abduction. He tries to hide it from her but it comes out via nightmare etc. They talk. Scully helps him cope and deal with what's happened. Can have some romantic comfort smut if you want.
> 
> Post DeadAlive. Season 8 and beyond. Doesn't have to follow the show. Use your imagination and have fun.
> 
> Angst, hardship, relief, love. Can throw some romance in to it as it resolves itself.
> 
> MSR
> 
> Just watched DeadAlive and the idea came to me. Have fun with it.


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